In honor of Russian heroes

Hundreds recall cost of defeating Hitler's forces

HALLANDALE BEACH — Dr. Yevgenia Ryabaya performed hundreds of amputations under heavy fire and bombardment - operations that still give her nightmares six decades later.

Lt. Alexander Groch was shot six times in his head, chest and legs but never left the front to go home. His home was gone, and the front was everywhere.

And infantryman Mikhail Fishman, still alive with his dead comrades all around him, tried to kill himself before being taken prisoner by the Germans.

"But the gun was wet - I was all night under rain in a pile of bodies - so I was sent off to a labor camp," said Fishman, 87, of West Palm Beach.

These were just some of the stories told Friday by what might be called Russia's Greatest Generation, the dozens of surviving veterans of World War II now living in South Florida who fought for the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.

The event was Victory Day, the May 9 holiday in Russia that commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany and honors the estimated 20 million citizens and soldiers who died. About 400 people gathered Friday afternoon at Tatiana Restaurant in Hallandale Beach to sing patriotic songs and toast the male and female soldiers with medals dangling from jackets and blouses.

"Last year we had 300 to honor, and this year we have half that number of veterans," said Rachel Lekherzak, who organized the event as head of the Federation of Russian-American Organizations of Miami. "Many have died ..."

An estimated 30,000-50,000 natives of Russia, the Ukraine and other Russian-speaking countries live in South Florida, primarily between Hollywood and North Miami Beach. Community leaders guess that about 60 percent to 70 percent are Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s and '80s when Jewish persecution was the focus of international human rights campaigns.

"Everyone lost someone - a father, a mother, a brother or a sister - in the war against Hitler," said Rabbi Alex Kaller, head of the Chabad Jewish Center in Sunny Isles. "It was the war against Hitler, a fight for survival, and these are people who really defined life for future generations in Russia. The young still know - just today a teacher in our preschool wished me a happy May 9."

The million-man German invasion of the Soviet Union's European border on June 22, 1941, was also the beginning of the mass slaughter of Jews by German units. In September 1941, special Nazi units murdered 33,000 Jews in a ravine near Kiev, Ukraine, called Babi Yar. Over the next months, 70,000 other people were machine-gunned in this single ravine.

For Jewish Russian soldiers, especially, the risks were grave. Many were shot on sight by the Germans, said Fishman, who used forged papers to hide his identity in the German labor camp where he spent four years. Ryabaya and Groch, both of Miami Beach, recalled the fear of being captured and identified as Jews.

"It was very clear that the Germans were out to kill Jews, all the Jewish soldiers knew that," said Fishman. "That's why it's important that we remember this day, Jews and non-Jews, that commemorate the dead."

Tim Collie can be reached at tcollie@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4573.